There's the Law and There's What's Right

'Scuse me while I ramble 'n' rant a wee.

Sometimes laws are made.  Sometimes?  Too often! 

The social contract tells us how to behave, in a general sense, and laws are supposed to help enforce the boundaries and keep us civil.

Thing is, it seems that some folks think they can and should force everyone else to think and do as they do, even when their mandates fly in the face of justice.

Recently, the state of Georgia passed a whole mess of laws restricting the ability of its citizens to vote.  I won't bore you with the details - they're horrifying and unjust and bewildering in their indecency.  Horrible people making horrible rules because they think they can do what they like and make everyone else do it, too.  If you're reading this, you obviously have some kind of Internet skills and can Google the stupidity.

Although the whole mess makes me irate, I'm really stuck on one part.  I am...riled...

Georgia lawmakers have made it unlawful to give food or water to people standing on line to vote.

Umm...

Hello, Georgia, have we met?

Because I know, if we'd ever met, you wouldn't have done that. 

You'd have run the other way, in fact.  Possibly you'd have bound and muzzled whoever proposed it and left them on a mountain top under a new moon as a propitiating sacrifice to the gods of decency.

Because now?  The Witch is...riled...

There will be a reckoning.

Lest anyone mistake the above for some kind of threat, it's not.  I don't threaten.

What I DO is feed people.  Anyone who is hungry.  Regardless of who you worship, vote for, love, admire, wear, or follow, I will feed you.  Even the lowest of humans, politicians, I will feed if they hunger.  I will always strive to answer hunger and thirst.  There is no circumstance that will keep me from doing what I can, what is just and right and compassionate.  No mortal being, no law of the land, no threat, will make me stray from that path, will bend my integrity, will keep me from it.  I've not yet met the god that would demand I stop, nor has the power to make me.

You, Georgia lawmakers?  You are mere mortals, and among the weakest of them.  You believe that you have power, that you have mastery over your subjects.

You do not.

You believe in an illusion, and one day the illusion will fade and there will be a reckoning.

Among many pagans is a blessing of sorts:  May you never hunger.  May you never thirst.

I take this seriously.  Bone deep, in fact.

There's also the threefold law, a reminder that for every action there is a consequence, usually magnified three times - harm someone, receive three time the harm (often by your own hand).  Help someone, three times the blessing will find you.

Some witches curse.  Some people seek vengeance through action.  Me?  I bless.  Sometimes, though, it's wise to fear the blessing.

Bless you, Georgia lawmakers who enacted this travesty.  May you see yourself.  May you find the world reflecting you to you, and truly See yourself.  May you know, to the bone, to the soul, to every corner, in ever shadowy place you seek to hide, may you Know what you are, what you have done.  May you feel what your actions mean to those you seek to control.  May you understand, all the way to your last breath, what kind of evil you carry within you.  May you have opportunity after opportunity to make things right, and may you find the courage to act on those opportunities even against the poison of your own souls.  May your children, and your children's children, unto the last generation, set themselves to right your wrongs or endure the consequences and curse you for it.  May you know what it means to suffer unjustly until you learn how to be just.

May you know what it is to need compassion...and may compassion find you, reach out to you, offer succor, without pain or price, because your unjust laws?  Do not make you free from need, and compassion asks no price.  Unlike you, compassion doesn't care how it may benefit from its action.  It also won't keep you from collecting your consequences, because compassion knows that some lessons must be learned hard, and it would be cruel to protect you from your actions.  How would you learn?

Between this life and the next, there is someone standing at the gate.  They have the power to determine your destination.  Consider your actions and which pathway your feet will be set upon.  How will you answer for what you've done?  What will you tell the savior you claim to worship, to follow, to adore?  

Bless you, who made this cruelty into law.  I hope you learn quickly that there is the law, and there is what is right, and sometimes the two are not the same.  We are not obliged to obey unjust laws, and you can be replaced.

There will be a reckoning.

Kyd's Cockeyed History, A Slightly But Not Factually Edited Repost

 Another year, another repost.

~~~~~
I'm cooking corned beef and cabbage tonight, much to my delight - there will be plenty for dinner and enough left over for hash tomorrow.  I'll make up a to-go for Mom, since she's staying home (and I don't blame her).  Bird opts out of the feast entirely, causing me to question whether he's really mine. I get not liking cabbage, but potatoes? Something's not right with the child.  Sprout may try a taste, or she may not.  She's trying to be more adventurous about food, but she can still be put off if it looks odd.

I'm planning on making soda bread, too, because we all like it and any leftovers can be used to make a nice doorstop or cudgel.

Seeing as I'm Pagan, you wouldn't think I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Better than most, I am supposed know what St. Patrick did to get famous and earn his sainthood. However, I'm also part Irish, and I happen to love corned beef and cabbage. Also, I consider it a reclaiming of the day for Pagans, or some junk.

A bit of slightly bent history (that has, I'll grant you, been mangled in my head over the years and is rather truncated because I'm not writing a book, here)(I'm writing a book somewhere else). When I was a child, we were told that St. Patrick's day was to celebrate his chasing all the snakes out of Ireland. It is an historically serpent-free bit of earth, and the church attributed this to Paddy and his efforts...kind of overlooking that there weren't any of the slithery things on the island to begin with, if you ask me. Which they didn't, because I was a kid and most grown-ups weren't prepared for my staggering logic and keen grasp of history but rather appalling lack of respect for theology.

Many years later, people were saying St. Patrick's Day was a celebration of all things Irish, like green beer (wait, isn't beer German??) and green clothes, and green hair, and green mashed potatoes (which I won't eat on a dare because, really...green potatoes???), and rivers dyed green (I'm sure the fish are all so very thankful to be included...like Fridays and Lent weren't enough for them!)(that might only be funny if you're Catholic)(or not) and exclusionary parades, and funny little men waving their shillelaghs about (look it up you pervs!!) and that sort of thing.

 In none of the many different explanations for this seemingly random holiday did anyone mention pagans. A most curious oversight if you know what St. Patrick, who was just Patrick at the time (not really, I have no idea what his real name was. For all I know, it was Fred), was actually doing on the Emerald Isle.

He was born and lived sometime between 490 and 461 AD, give or take. Around age sixteen, he was either sent, or stolen and taken, to Ireland where he spent some time hanging out with sheep and being lonely. He talked to God a lot. You may notice that lots of shepherds do that. You would too if all you had for company all day was a bunch of mutton-heads. I'm sure the Pope understands... 

Christianity was rolling along like a snowball in those days, spreading out all over the dang place. Good grief, it was getting so that a simple Pagan/Heathen (there's a difference between the two, not that the church cared much) couldn't get any peace any more. Everywhere they turned, there was a church being built where a sacred grove used to be, from the trees that used to be the sacred grove, or a church going up on a sacred hill, or someone bathing their dirty feet in a sacred stream. To be fair, there was a lot of real estate lumped under that "sacred" heading in the pagan world. We're like that - we just love our planet so. Plus, you know, all those gods needed housing, and they don't all do the roommate thing very well. So the pagans were running out of places to have sex on the ground, in the woods, up a tree - they were big on the sex, those little devils - and to read entrails in their spare time.

I digressed. Sorry.

So there was this lonely kid, Patrick Whatsisname, hanging out with sheep and pondering life, the Universe, and everything. He got the idea, somewhere along the way, that maybe other folks should share his God. He got out of his contract (OK, probably slavery) and went around telling folks how terrific his God was, and how he reckoned they should convert. It seems that polite conversation wasn't doing it for the pagans, who tended to stare at him, or point and laugh. Rude beggars, huh? Now young Patrick (or middle aged Patrick, or old Patrick, I have no idea) decided he needed to be a bit more...persuasive. He had noticed something common among the pagan big-wigs. The guys at the top of the food-chain, magic/spirituality wise speaking tended to have a symbol on them somewhere...often around their wrist. On the wrist that indicated their "hand of power", or the hand which they believed their "magic" flowed from. If it wasn't a tattoo, it was a torque. Guess what the tattoo/torque was? A critter called the ouroboros. For them as what doesn't ken what that critter is, it's a snake eating its tail, and often represents eternity.
Pat realized that if he took away this "power", he took away their mystique and leadership ability. So he removed the snakes - often with something edged and unpleasant. Yes, he whacked off their hands. Or branded their skin. Or took their trinkets. Converting Heathens is such messy work!! It was for their own good, of course.  Serpents in Ireland?  Not on his watch!

Some pagans today go on "snake crawls", a sort of pub crawl where they wear snakes and proclaim their paganism. I'm not quite that...er...proactive. I also don't necessarily think old Pat went around mauling everyone he met in an effort to build church membership and win a nifty prize. But it's the bloody aspect of what he supposedly did that earned his name in Christendom and for which his holiday is celebrated.

So again, why would I celebrate the day? Well, I'm all for a day when families get together and discuss history, theology, spirituality, and the like. Traditions are important - they give us a foundation on which to build our lives. People should discuss their history so they don't repeat it - whatever side of the issue they're on. Also, as I mentioned, I am part Irish. I can celebrate that heritage even as I acknowledge its imperfection. And I am Pagan - and I am celebrating the fact that I can be pagan today without (much) fear of having my (largely not visible when I'm clothed) tattoos painfully removed and other unpleasantness (except for the odd zealot who thinks I'm fair game, but I'm used to that. I live in the Bible belt, after all). Precisely because we didn't get wiped out, I celebrate. And have you ever had a really nice corned beef and cabbage dinner? I mean, yum! Oh, but I won't be wearing green. I wear blue. Don't even think about pinching me.

Love, Love, Love

 Love.

It's a word with baggage.  An overused word.  A word applied to fabric softener and dish detergent, to songs and fast food, sports teams and automobile parts and that one particular shade of vermillion.

We love clothing and cosmetics and movies and tv shows and certain brands of cracker (but not those other ones - those other ones are horrible!).

Sometimes we say "I love you" like it's painful.  Like we're ashamed of it.

In our cultural (of the Western sort, particularly USA style), we have an idea what it means to love, and maybe even categorize it a little, but mostly we don't think about it awfully much.  We're shy of feeling it, terrible at and terrified of saying it, and generally wish we had more of it while simultaneously pretending that we're just fine without it thankyouverymuch.

Recently, the Evil Genius, his father, and I were discussing the use (or, rather, misuse) of "philia" as it is often appended to words.  That led to looking up words for love, particularly Greek words, which led to...well...this post.

It has been a minute since I read about or studied Greek (except their food, of which I am a devotee), so I only vaguely remembered that there are a handful of different types of love in the ancient Greek world, and I couldn't recall more than a couple of them, so I hopped on down the rabbit hole of the Internetz and found myself a list that seems, to my faulty memory, to be complete.  No need to disillusion me.  I am contemplating rearranging my vocabulary to include these words, because who doesn't need more verbal tools?  No need to disillusion me there, either.

Folks, je vouz presenter le list of love words.  I hope you find 'em handy and help spread the...er...love.

Eros - romantic, passionate love.  You know, cheesy romance novel love.  Passion, lust, pleasure, yes please and thank you.  Interestingly, it seems this was a terrifying kind of love to the ancient Greeks because it meant losing control, loss of free will, an unthinking drive to frolic among the wildflowers and make with the whoopee, ohhh, yeahhh.  Intense romantic and sexual feelings that demanded action, baby!!!  Eros can wreak havoc, rob one of sense, and bring a body to their knees.  It is a conflagration that is as likely to consume and leave nothing but ash behind as it is to settle into something more easily felt, experienced, and lived with.  I dread this love, because on the rare occasions I've brushed against its edges, it has been disastrous.  This one, for me, is to be endured until it, hopefully, ebbs or ends.

Philia - affectionate love.  This is the friendly love, a platonic love that doesn't require or even want, really, any sort of physical attraction.  This is a gentle, warming love.  I can relate strongly to this one.  I philia my friends so hard!

Agape - a selfless, universal love.  This is the love for the stranger, for nature, for deity.  It is an abstract kind of love.  Sometimes it feels - gently - overwhelming.  Agape is unconditional, boundlessly compassionate, infinitely empathetic.  It is a love extended to all, and I mean all.  I grok this one deeply - this love suffuses me to bursting.  It is my salvation and my curse.

Storge - love of/for the familiar.  This is a protective, kinship kind of love, what we feel for family and, occasionally, translates to patriotism.  It's a love of loyalty, of what we know, of the puzzle into which our weird, curvy parts fit perfectly.  I have an enormous storge for my family, both the born into and the chosen into.

Mania - obsessive love.  This is the love that can turn into anger, violence, and destruction with hardly any effort.  In fact, it takes more effort to keep it from becoming those things.  This is stalking kind of love.  This is co-dependency, jealousy, and violence.  This is the toxic love that poisons, devours, and kills.  This is the love that teaches us that not all love is such a good thing.  I think I've dipped my toes into this kind of love, but thankfully never fully immersed in it.  

Ludus - playful love.  This is a sweet, funny kind of love.  It's the teasing love of flirting with a crush, the affection between new lovers who laugh, joke, float along on a wave of endorphins and happy little discoveries.  You know, the annoying kind of love!  Yeah, I want some, too.

Pragma - enduring love.  Pragma is a love built on a strong foundation of commitment, understanding, the long haul.  It's a love that has gone through some shit, learned to compromise, found patience and tolerance, and matured.  I have witnessed this love, and envy those who experience it.

Philautia - self love.  No, not that kind of self love.  Or, well, why not that kind of self love?  But really, this is the kind of love that speaks of appreciation for self, of knowing, of caring for one's self.  This is the kind of love that turns inward yet help connect us to others - as we learn to love ourselves, quirks and peccadillos and all, we learn to love and appreciate others.  Like many, I'm working on this one.

I'm going to add a link, here, to a non-Greek post about another kind of love - perfect love - because I think it's pertinent.

I don't think any of the above loves stand alone.  I believe that we can experience constant combinations and evolutions of the emotion, which is probably why we find it so confusing.  Love is one wild ride, but it's a wild ride that we want, need, to experience if we are to live fully.

I agape you, and now Imma go storge my kids and philia the cats.  How's your love life?

Washed Up

 "Something there is that doesn't love a wall..." - Robert Frost

Having been born in, and having spent my youth rambling around, New England, where Mr. Frost noticed this phenomenon and then wrote about it, I can attest to the fact that, indeed, something there is that doesn't love a wall.  Nature up yonder, at least when I was roaming through the woods with the smilodons, has mood swings.  The onset of cold weather brings an onslaught of frost heaves, which cause havoc on roads and other pavement, and on anything stacked that isn't also stuck together with cement or grout or old toothpaste (don't tell ME about how sticky it is) or good intentions (some of the very stickiest stuff in existence).

I'm not writing about walls, today, despite the promising beginning of this post.

I'm writing about my dishwasher.  Wait, what?  That's a leap.

Something there is that doesn't love a dishwasher.  Especially at Casa de Crazy.  Dishwashers just...lose their will to live.  Oh, they try.  They put up a good fight.  They groan and grind and sometimes whine a little, and they do lots of whooshing and shushing and, not to put too fine a point on it, washing, but sooner rather than later?  They up and die.

Entropy is inevitable.  Things with moving parts will break down.  Heck, things without moving parts will break down.  We will all eventually slide with cold-syrupy slowness into the long, lingering, heat death of the Universe.  Don't panic, you have plenty of time to press your good trousers and tidy up your hair.  Chugging along in all its entropic glory, the end isn't so much nigh as it is a few minutes off.

My dishwashers, though, seem to want to get a jump on things.

I am well aware that they need occasional cleaning out and perhaps a gentle pat and "Good job, well done you" to help them last.  I know about pre-rinsing as an aid to longevity, and about not overloading.  I try not to run the thing more than once a day, and will often go two days between runs.  I run the hot water to the sink, first, to prime the pipes.  I chant the incantations at the proper hour and make offerings quarterly as prescribed by the manual.

They die anyway.

The current fancy drying rack didn't make it two years.  Two.  Years.

The one before it went for about five, I think, before melting to itself on the inside.

I can't recall if there was one before the one before this one, I've lost track.  I do know I am pretty good at almost keeping up with the washing by hand, and that a defunct dishwasher makes a fine drying rack but you have to leave it open with the drawers?  Baskets?  Slide-y out-y thingies? out, which may lead to barked shins if one is careless about where they place said shins in the dark.  Also, it's a good idea to wipe down the inside of the dishwasher door and maybe the tub as well every now and then because despite it being clean dishes hanging out in there to dry, there will be a buildup of schmutz.

The inner workings of the dish machine are a mystery, to me.  Honestly, it could be trolls or golems in there, and I wouldn't know.  Pretty sure it isn't pixies or imps, though.  Repairing the things is well beyond me.  I'll have to have someone in to do it.  Eventually.  For now, I stand t the sink a few times a day, wash a handful of things, then wander off to do whatever it is I do when I wander off.

It's not exactly a pressing matter, and if I have it repaired or get a new one, it'll just break down as soon as the warrantee is up, so why be in a hurry?

Something there is that doesn't love a dishwasher, at least around here.

Superhero (I Am Not A)

 I have had many opportunities in my life to prove to myself (and anyone who questions it) that I am definitely not a superhero.

If the lack of flight-without-aircraft (and a pilot, and a flight crew, and a ground crew, and...) isn't an obvious clue, there's also a distinct lack of laser vision, super (and sometimes even ordinary) strength, x-ray vision (boy, could I have used it a few times - think of the ER savings!), super speed (unless you look at it from a sloth's perspective, and then I'm The Flash, baby!), and a number of other egregious holes in my superhero resume.

On February 15, the PTB decided I needed yet another reminder of my not-superheroness.  On no less a day (not that it's really a big deal, and I genuinely mean that) than my very own birthday*, I ignored my desire to stay a-bed and took the Evil Genius out for a practice drive.  Wait...no...umm...I mean I let the Evil Genius practice driving.  Yeah.  Because I don't need to practice driving the Evil Genius, what with him not having wheels or a mechanical motor or even reliable steering.  Anyway.  I really didn't want to be out in the world, but I had told him we could go driving so he can get his hours in (Redneck Central has a graduated licensing system and he needs a certain number of hours before he can move to the next level) and I try not to disappoint my children more than once a fortnight, so out we went.

I plan routes to be interesting and maybe a little challenging - hills, blind turns, multiple lanes, turn lanes, right turns, left turns, lane changes, traffic lights, parking - and cover things likely to be on driving tests and part of the driving experience.  On the 15th, we were supposed to head to a local parking lot and work on the various types of, rather obviously, parking.

He asked if we could do a loop on some local roads, first, and since more practice is better, I agreed.

He was doing well, no big surprise, and we were on a back road, making a left turn, when things went rather sideways.

Literally.

He'd stopped, checked traffic, and was just beginning the turn when there was a sort of powder, screechy, crunchy, popping thud.

An oncoming car hit us, her driver's side nose to our driver's side nose.  Airbags deployed, crumple zones crumpled, anti-lock things anti-locked, and things generally got messy, loud, smoky, and quiet.

I'll skip all the details of dealing with the wreck.  That's not what this post is about.

Onward.

Thanks to safety features in both vehicles, there were no dire injuries.  I can vouch for the fact that airbags work.  Oh, boy, do they work.  With terrific enthusiasm, they work.  In combination with locking, 3-point seatbelts (standard issue), they do a fantastic job of making sure that the human body doesn't wind up being distressingly intimate with the dashboard, the windscreen, or possibly the pavement outside the vehicle.  They work painfully well.

And here comes the most recent proof that I am not a superhero.

I didn't take a ride on the bus - I was busy dealing with the incident and didn't feel the need - but I was hurting.  I mean, airbags, wow.  As things began to motherfucker that hurt!, I quietly chanted the mantra "You're a witch.  Deal now, feel later" and dealt.  Once the incident was cleaned up, my son reassured a few million times, the other driver hugged, looked after until rescue came to carry her off for a precautionary ER visit, and my beloved Calliope (the Tahoe) hauled to Casa de Crazy via tiltbed and dropped off on the driveway, I asked Mom (who drove down from Dragon's Rest to rescue us because Mom) if we could maybe, possibly, pop on over to the local ER, because holy carp, airbag!

An aside - I wound up at the same ER as the other driver and unintentionally got to listen to the crew talking to her about test results.  Soft tissue damage, nothing wrong with spine, no broken bones, no internal organ damage, whew!  Also, aside from some rather reasonable psychological bruising and some uncomfortable physical bruising, the Evil Genius was ok and opted out of the ER (or as he likes to think of it, Plague Central).

I only went because the ouch was escalating rapidly, and it was an ouch I hadn't experienced before, so I didn't know how to label or process it.

When they offered me a pain killer, I actually accepted it.  That's kind of a big deal, for me.

Tests and scans performed, I was sent home with a couple of prescriptions for anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxer and the admonition that it will hurt for a while.

Yeah.

About that.

I slept in the recliner for a week, when I slept.  Are we sure nothing is broken or bent?  Really?  Because wow.

The second week, I alternated nights in bed  - fun getting horizontal and then for the love of all that's holy, don't move! - and the recliner.  For those two weeks, I ruthlessly quashed coughs, sneezes, and hiccoughs (sonofabitch!!!) and didn't move or breathe unless I had a desperate need to.  I let myself get slightly dehydrated for a few days because drinking means peeing means standing up means sitting down means standing up again means leaning to use the flush lever means sitting back down in the recliner means oh, I don't think so.

You know how, in movies and tv, the hero gets kicked in the chest or punched in the middle and just kind of shakes it off, or pops right back up, keeps fighting, and the next day looks and acts like nothing happened?

Not me, yo.  Almost three weeks after the incident, I am still moving gingerly, awkwardly.  I'm much better, really, and thankful, but still hurting and rather over it. 

So, yeah, no super healing or invulnerability, then.

I am super impatient, though, so maybe that's one of my powers?  Because two days after the incident (hmm, The Incident may have to be my next band name, I'm thinking maybe some kind of Indie Folk genre), I thought I should be fine, and apparently my poor old body has other ideas.  We are in negotiations, but I think I'm losing.

Life goes on, and we'll get back to what passes for normal around here, and I have one more reminder that I am in no way a super anything, except in a rather mundane, human way.  Dammit.


*And would you believe that this wasn't actually the worst thing to ever happen on my birthday?  Because it wasn't.

Is/n't

 We're deep in the heart of February, and here we are.

Yup.

Here.  We.  Are.

Welp.

Here, have a not-at-all-but-maybe-a-little random list of things that is/isn't depression:

Depression isn't a fleeting feeling of sadness.
Depression is long-term-to-constant, often crushing, feeling of absolute bleakness.

Depression is a beast that cannot be tamed, but may be slightly gentled through work (HARD work), medication, and cussed determination.
Depression isn't something that can be cured, and can certainly not be cured by any sort of bootstraps or their tugging.

Depression isn't something to be ashamed of.
Depression is a deep and abiding feeling of shame that haunts its bearer into silence.

Depression isn't always deadly.
Depression is always trying to kill.  Every minute.  Every day.  Every breath.  Every blink.

Depression is not showering, not brushing teeth, not doing laundry, not eating right, not eating, feeling unworthy, feeling alone, feeling lonely, not doing dishes, a messy home, sleeping all the time, not sleeping at all, not paying bills, getting lost in time, a liar and a thief.
Depression isn't laziness, just an excuse, just giving up, taking care of yourself, a matter of deciding to be well and happy.

Depression isn't always easy to see.
Depression is outright lying to any and every one about being fine.

Depression is forgetting to take medication and appointments and birthdays and life, the Universe, and everything.
Depression isn't forgetting that those things matter.

Depression isn't the inability to feel happiness, to laugh.
Depression is the ability to feel all of those things even as it is devouring the soul.

Depression isn't the inability to love.
Depression is the inability to feel loved.

And with that cheerful, partial list, I'm going to wander off into the fog and see how lost I am/can get inside my own head. 

Better

 

There is a song for everything. 

My kids hear me say this often.  Sometimes one of them will say something and it'll trigger a song in my head and I'll sing their phrase back to them.  It's a kind of game, I suppose.

On my device I have many, many songs.  Music thrums at the core of my psyche.  I have a few different playlists for different moods.  One of them is titled "People", and on it are songs that remind me of folks I know.  When one of these songs plays, I say hello to the person.  They're not all among the living, but the music doesn't care.

Some songs are less about people than about moments, or choices, or life in general.  Or all of those.

I was in an abusive relationship.  It didn't start out that way.  It started hopeful, and giddy, and powerful.  It started with sweet words and compliments.  It was the very definition of love bombing, something I had no notion of at the time.  Love bombing is something best know to those who study or experience narcissisms/narcissistic relationships.  He was, still is, a narcissist, textbook.  He may or may not read this blog, and he probably won't like this entry, but it has been building up inside my head for a few week and it wants OUT!  So, out it comes.

The abuse began before he ever came here to Casa de Crazy.  It began when we talked on the phone, when his anger and frustration at his own life echoed in his words to me.  At the time, I knew he had...anger issues...and tried to help him get a grip on it, to have hope.  After all, we had plans, happy ones (I thought).  It seemed effective, to talk through what was upsetting him.

One incident sticks out - he wanted to go camping.  The campground he had in mind was in use by a Boy Scout event, and he was turned away.  He called me, agitated.  Angry.  I can't help it, I am a helper.  I want to help people.  While on the phone with him, from four states away, I found a campground near him and sent him directions.  He had his camping weekend.  That was the first of many times he would call me, even after he moved here, to find him and get him directions to where he wanted to be.  More often than not, he was still driving and I had to search on the fly, and he would yell at me, denigrate me, for not being fast enough, good enough, for not being more remarkable than I already was.  How many people can ask where you are, and while you're still driving, find you, find where you want to be, and get you there with clear direction, even sending you information via text and also through a mapping app?  But it wasn't good enough.

It wasn't good enough.

I wasn't good enough.

Never good enough.

And when I was better at something than him, he would rage.  He raged for days because we'd laughed at a bit of whimsy and both wanted to share it on our blogs.  We each raced to snag the link and post it.  I got there first.  No big deal, I thought.  I was wrong.  That night, I contemplated suicide for the first but not the only time in our relationship.  I was so awful, I thought.  How could I dare?  And he refused to share the video on his blog because I posted it first and...I was a terrible person for mocking him with my success like that.

It was the first time I saw his anger, but not the last.  

He swore he loved me even as he swore at me.

I got so that I didn't want to write, or sing, or take photographs, or cook, or do anything better than he did.  I failed on purpose, did poorly on purpose, so he would get angry.  Or, if I couldn't fail, I wouldn't let him see I'd done well.

We were supposed to be polyamorous.  Heck, he met his first "other" girlfriend through me!  He was poly, but I couldn't be.  I couldn't feel happy or good about myself if another man so much as complimented me - I couldn't so much as hug a friend I'd known for twenty years or more - or he'd accuse me of lying, cheating, scheming to get rid of him.  He cheated on me, lied about it, stole from me and the kids, lied to us, broke his word over and again, and I was steadfast...but he accused me nonetheless.  

I held on.  I struggled, strove to keep together.  I just knew that we could make it work if we did the work.  Through his addiction, anger, alcoholism, abuse, and narcissism, I kept on.  I made excuses for his words and behavior.  I was quiet, and hard, and loud, and soft, and yielding and unyielding, and consistent, and eventually I was done.

That kind of anger, that rage, that spite, that hatefulness, that blame, all of it was toxic.  My children cowered in their rooms, fled from him.  Time after time I put myself between them and him, put myself between him and the world, inviting his wrath to target me.  He knew how to hurt with words, but so did I.  I finally stopped trying to be nice and spit my own venom at him.  Time after time, I used my voice, my experience, my knowledge of him and the human psyche, and I lashed out.  I didn't like who I was becoming.

I had to end it.  For the sake of my children, for the sake of myself, I had to cut the final strand that tied us together.  So.  I did.

During that time of ending, the song above came into my life.  Dear Goddess, it was a blow.  At first I wondered how I could have been better, what I did wrong, why I wasn't good enough.  Then I wondered why I blamed myself.

I wasn't, I'm not, perfect.  Mistakes?  Oh, yeah, you betcha.

But.  I gave it my poor best, held on long after every other person in my life who loved me begged me to let it go, gave and gave and gave while he took and took and took until I was empty and then I dug deeper and found more.  I borrowed against my future self, took years from tomorrow and shoved them into the cracks, trying to keep the whole thing from falling apart, until nothing was enough and it crumbled.

I look back and think of the pain and sorrow that I carried with me as if I deserved them, and I I wonder what could have happened if we had been better.  And then I think...how could I have been better?  How could I have been more?  Again, I'm so, so far from perfect I can't even see it from here...but...I was always striving to be my better self.

If you were a better man...if he were a better man...

But he didn't want to be.  He wanted the world, wanted me, to bend to him, to bend to his unforgiving, unreasonable will.  Still does, although he says he trying to be better.  I hope he figures it out before he destroys someone else.  Before he destroys himself.  

As it turns out, I cannot, will not, bend that far; I will not break for anybody else.  I'm the only one who breaks me.  I the best there is at it.  

I wake up lonely at night.  I walk through my days lonely, wondering if that loneliness will haunt me until the end of my time.  I feel the immense burden of being a single mother and of the many ways I fail my kids on a daily basis.  I hear echoes of his terrible, horrible, awful, ugly words.  I know I had to do it.  Should have done it sooner, but I'm stubborn and don't easily give up, give in.

I had to be better than that.

I had to be better than both of us. 

I have to be better.

I will be better.

Happy Thanksgiving

Here followeth a Casa de Crazy Thanksgiving Day Tradicion:


And a new addition to the tradition:


We hope you have a pleasant, tasty, mellow, comfortable, healthy, not-at-all-contentious Thanksgiving day if you are in the USA and an all around good one if not in the USA or not celebrating.

Here's the link of you want to view full screen:  Alice's Restaurant  and Thankful

Thankful

 I have a few traditions on Thanksgiving. Not many - the menu, Mom recording the Macy's parade so we can watch it together at Yule and fast-forward through all the crappy pop music, commercials, and talking heads to see the twenty minutes of balloons, floats and high school bands we’re actually interested in hidden among all that junk, and my list of some things for which I am thankful, in no particular order and in no way complete:

What remains of my left foot, Nubbly
The doctors, nurses, and techs who probably saved my life and helped me get back to living it - wound care, follow up, and all the rest
The care that family and friends have given me while I return to upright living once more
The house in which I live
The Evil Genius

Mom
Sprout
Gypsy, K2, Mizz A, Kit, Sam-I-Am, PJ, Mizz Beth, Martha 'n' Milo, Avalon, my band mates, Dica, Donna, and all of my friends who put up with me when I am most myself and therefor least likable. They are the net beneath me when I fly and fall
Bread
The scent of leaf loam and woodsmoke in the crisp autumn air
Apple cider
Books, music, and art
Clean, plentiful water
Clean air
Clean clothes
Freedom
Nature and the ways she finds to show me something new of herself every day
Words
Song
Dance
Adversity, that joy is all the sweeter (Okay, okay, the joy is sweet enough, so basta with the adversity for a minute, please)
Every creature and plant that I consume to sustain myself, because without the life I take, I would have no life to live
Love - that it exists at all is a wonder, and I feel blessed to know it in many forms
Chocolate, gift from the Gods (yes, even the perversion called "candy bar") (Mmm...candy bar...)
The cats by whom I am kept
Honeycrisp Apples
Strong hands
Strong spirit
Strong will
Laughter
Cussed determination not to curl up and die just because life can sometimes be a succession of truly awful, bleak, and desolate days...but sometimes it isn't
The Internet
You

I hope you have a blessed day, and that the things for which you're thankful outweigh the things for which you're not.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all, from us at Casa de Crazy to you out in the Blue Nowhere and beyond.

Jesus Wept

For this post to mak sense, maybe go read the old blog post, first.

He came for a visit last night.  The only dream I had, or at least that I can recall.  He didn’t want tea or cookies or banana bread or cinnamon rolls.  He looked...I dunno...shattered, maybe...?

He wanted comfort.  He never said a word, just leaned on me.  I held him as he wept, absorbed his tears in my shirt and let his sobs shake me.  I suppose even he needs a safe space to decompress.  In all the dreams over all the years, I’ve never seen him like this.  I patted and rubbed his back, cupped the back of his head like a mother does when comforting her child, and quietly let him know that I’ve got him, that he can let it all out, let it all go.

Near broke my heart.

After a long while, he straightened, sighed, gave me a brave, watery smile, and turned to go.

“I’ll be here”, I told him.

He looked back, smile a little steadier, then walked away into the darkness all around us.

Oh, how I wish I could heal his hurt.

3, 2, 1, Yum!

Wow, it’s been a while.

Here at Casa de Crazy, we’ve been keeping to ourselves as much as possible...so, pretty much business as usual.

I’ve seen a few folks discussing their sudden homebody status and its effect on their waistlines.  I can empathize - I tend to graze, myself.

If I’m being honest, much of what I’m eating is nothing like healthy.  It’s a battle that I lose as often as I win.  It’s easier to make healthier choices when they’re readily available, dontcha think?

To that end, I took a few minutes this afternoon and threw together one of my favorite snacks:  Asian Cucumers.

The first time I had these was as K2’s house, and it was love at first bite.  She gave me the recipe, but I forgot it.  Tch.

No problem.  Good excuse to play in the kitchen!

A few years back I finally found a combination that I like, and here follows my recipe:

Thinly Sliced Cucumber (I use one sort of fattish, mediumish one)

Some Thinly Sliced Onion (any onion is fine, I used red because I like the added color and pungency)

For the dressing:

3 Tbsp Rice Vinegar (I use seasoned with garlic)

2 Tbsp Toasted Sesame Oil

1 Tbsp Soy Sauce

1 tsp sugar

Things you can add if you wanna:  garlic, red bell pepper, red pepper flakes, shredded carrot, honey instead of sugar, green onion, ginger, or sesame seeds.

Mix the dressing ingredients in your container.  I used a Ziploc Twist ‘n’ Loc medium sized, which I think is 1quart.  Now shake, shake, shake!

Next, layer  sliced onion and cucumbers in the container.  How much of each is up to you.  I like onion, so I use about 1/3 of a medium onion.

Shake it up again.  Fun!

Stick it in the fridge.  Give it a shake from time to time.  You can eat them right away, or let them sit overnight.  I like them to sit and think about life, the Universe, and everything.

The most difficult part of this recipe is the waiting, but it’s worth it.

Thoughtfetti

Poor Sam is miserable.  Thousands of can’t-really-afford-them dollars in tests and medication and she’s still stuck in the cone, still trying to scratch herself bloody...and sometimes succeeding.  My heart aches.

~~~~~

I bought stamps.  The USPS is, in my opinion, vital.  I could expand on that thought, but I’ll spare you.  The moon landing stamps are purty!  They have lots of nifty designs, just in case you need to know that.

 ~~~~~
Today was errands day.  It was a little windy.

 ~~~~~
Storms rolled through last night.  I was asleep.  I’m told they were impressive.

I’ve been sewing masks.  Nothing fancy and I’m slow at it, but it gives me something to do.  I’m giving them away.  Like I said, it gives me something to do.  

~~~~~

How’re you doing?

Kyd’s Cockeyed History of St. P

Another year, another repost.
~~~~~
I'm cooking corned beef and cabbage tonight, much to my delight - there will be plenty for dinner and enough left over for hash tomorrow.  Mom is braving the wild world and joining us.  Bird opts out of the feast entirely, causing me to question whether he's really mine. I get not liking cabbage, but potatoes? Something's not right with the child.  Sprout may try a taste, or she may not.  She's trying to be more adventurous about food, but she can still be put off if it looks odd.

I'm planning on making soda bread, too, because we like it and any leftovers can be used to make a nice doorstop or cudgel.

Seeing as I'm Pagan, you wouldn't think I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Better than most, I am supposed know what St. Patrick did to get famous and earn his sainthood. However, I'm also part Irish, and I happen to love corned beef and cabbage. Also, I consider it a reclaiming of the day for Pagans, or some junk.

A bit of slightly bent history (that has, I'll grant you, been mangled in my head over the years and is rather truncated because I'm not writing a book, here)(I'm writing a book somewhere else). When I was a child, we were told that St. Patrick's day was to celebrate his chasing all the snakes out of Ireland. It is an historically serpent-free bit of earth, and the church attributed this to Paddy and his efforts...kind of overlooking that there weren't any of the slithery things on the island to begin with, if you ask me. Which they didn't, because I was a kid and most grown-ups weren't prepared for my staggering logic and keen grasp of history but rather appalling lack of respect for theology.

Many years later, people were saying St. Patrick's Day was a celebration of all things Irish, like green beer (wait, isn't beer German??) and green clothes, and green hair, and green mashed potatoes (which I won't eat on a dare because, really...green potatoes???), and rivers dyed green (I'm sure the fish are all so very thankful to be included...like Fridays and Lent weren't enough for them!)(that might only be funny if you're Catholic)(or not) and exclusionary parades, and funny little men waving their shillelaghs about (look it up you pervs!!) and that sort of thing.

 In none of the many different explanations for this seemingly random holiday did anyone mention pagans. A most curious oversight of you know what St. Patrick, who was just Patrick at the time (not really, I have no idea what his real name was. For all I know, it was Fred), was actually doing on the Emerald Isle.

He was born and lived sometime between 490 and 461 AD, give or take. Around age sixteen, he was either sent or stolen and taken to Ireland where he spent some time hanging out with sheep and being lonely. He talked to God a lot. You may notice that lots of shepherds do that. You would too if all you had for company all day was a bunch of mutton-heads. I'm sure the Pope understands... 

Christianity was rolling along like a snowball in those days, spreading out all over the dang place. Good grief, it was getting so that a simple Pagan/Heathen (there's a difference between the two, not that the church cared much) couldn't get any peace any more. Everywhere they turned, there was a church being built where a sacred grove used to be, from the trees that used to be the sacred grove, or a church going up on a sacred hill, or someone bathing their dirty feet in a sacred stream. To be fair, there was a lot of real estate lumped under that "sacred" heading in the pagan world. We're like that - we just love our planet so. Plus, you know, all those gods needed housing, and they don't do the roommate thing very well. So the pagans were running out of places to have sex on the ground, in the woods, up a tree - they were big on the sex, those little devils - and to read entrails in their spare time.

I digressed. Sorry.

So there was this lonely kid, Patrick Whatsisname, hanging out with sheep and pondering life, the Universe, and everything. He got the idea, somewhere along the way, that maybe other folks should share his God. He got out of his contract (OK, probably slavery) and went around telling folks how terrific his God was, and how he reckoned they should convert. It seems that polite conversation wasn't doing it for the pagans, who tended to stare at him, or point and laugh. Rude beggars, huh? Now young Patrick (or middle aged Patrick, or old Patrick, I have no idea) decided he needed to be a bit more...persuasive. He had noticed something common among the pagan big-wigs. The guys at the top of the food-chain, magic/spirituality wise speaking tended to have a symbol on them somewhere...often around their wrist. On the wrist that indicated their "hand of power", or the hand which they believed their "magic" flowed from. If it wasn't a tattoo, it was a torque. Guess what the tattoo/torque was? A critter called the oroborus. For them as what doesn't ken what that critter is, it's a snake eating its tail, and often represents eternity.
Pat realized that if he took away this "power", he took away their mystique and leadership ability. So he removed the snakes - often with something edged and unpleasant. Yes, he whacked off their hands. Or branded their skin. Or took their trinkets. Converting Heathens is such messy work!! It was for their own good, of course.

Some pagans today go on "snake crawls", a sort of pub crawl where they wear snakes and proclaim their paganism. I'm not quite that...er...proactive. I also don't necessarily think old Pat went around mauling everyone he met in an effort to build church membership and win a nifty prize. But it's the bloody aspect of what he supposedly did that earned his name in Christendom and for which his holiday is celebrated.

So again, why would I celebrate the day? Well, I'm all for a day when families get together and discuss history, theology, spirituality, and the like. Traditions are important - they give us a foundation on which to build our lives. People should discuss their history so they don't repeat it - whatever side of the issue they're on. Also, as I mentioned, I am part Irish. I can celebrate that heritage even as I acknowledge its imperfection. And I am Pagan - and I am celebrating the fact that I can be pagan today without (much) fear of having my (largely not visible when I'm clothed) tattoos painfully removed and other unpleasantness (except for the odd zealot who thinks I'm fair game, but I'm used to that. I live in the Bible belt, after all). Precisely because we didn't get wiped out, I celebrate. And have you ever had a really nice corned beef and cabbage dinner? I mean, yum! Oh, but I won't be wearing green. I wear blue. Don't even think about pinching me.

Community, Compassion, Cooperation

Please forgive me if this post isn’t as polished as you might like. It certainly is not as polished as I would like.

I wanted to put it out there into the world, though, as it occurred to me. This is something that I’ve been thinking about a great deal especially in the last few days.

COVID-19 has shown quite a few flaws in our social systems. I could go on about healthcare, scarcity, people with such low incomes that they cannot afford to miss weeks of work, children who will not get a meal of schools are closed, and a number of other things, but I am choosing one focal point here.

Community.

In the last few days I have, by necessity, gone to the grocery store. My particular market is not a large one. It is usually quite well stocked, and often not terribly busy. I know all of the staff members there, and they greet me like a friend. Even on days when leaving the house seems like an enormous chore, a burden that I cannot bear to carry, I can go to my Publix. They have always been wonderful to me.

Today when I went the parking lot was full.  Beyond full. People were circling. At the moment I have the use of a handicapped parking placard, but it did me no good. I had to simply take whichever space opened up first. Lucky for me, one opened up only three or four spaces away.

Walking with a cane is awkward.  I can only imagine how those with worse handicaps than mine are handling these crowded conditions.

I sat down on a motorized scooter and went about my business inside. It was strange, the things that were completely sold out. Bananas? Really? Plenty of other fruits - oranges, apples, grapes, and berries galore. Plenty of fresh vegetables. But no bananas. How odd. 

The rice and pasta were almost entirely gone. Macaroni and cheese, Ramen, wiped out. No toilet paper. No facial tissue. Paper towels running low. Absolutely no bread to be found. Well, not quite true, I did find one loaf hiding at the back of the bottom shelf where almost no one could see it. I suspect I only noticed it because I was sitting on a scooter, and not standing tall. I had to reach down and back to get it as it huddled shivering against the wall. Poor, lonely, a little loaf of bread. No hamburger buns. No hotdog buns. No buns of any kind. The only bread-type items remaining were English muffins and bagels, and I suspect those will be gone by tomorrow.  Tortillas were plentiful, but will likely be gone on a day or two.

As I rolled through the store, trying to wait patiently for other shoppers to continue down the aisles so that I could as well, the crowds intrigued me. Even during pre-holiday shopping season I have never seen so many people in the store!  A few shoppers seemed to be considering their purchases carefully, but more appeared to be grabbing whatever fell under their eye as possibly useful.  

I’m belaboring the point, I know, but I found it shocking.

The sense of urgency, bordering on panic, was palpable.

And now for the thought that this inspired.

If we were a compassionate, caring, cooperative society, I don’t think we’d be having this problem right now. Yes, we’d be worried about this illness sweeping the globe. I’m not trying to downplay the seriousness of this. COVID-19 is nothing to play with. It’s more the fear of scarcity of which I speak.

I don’t think this semi-panic would be occurring if we were confident that our friends, family, and neighbors would all help look out for us as we would help look out for them. If we were a connected community, I don’t believe we’d be afraid of running out of toilet paper or going hungry even (potentially) under a two-week quarantine.

We would, instead, be confident that if we run out of something, someone, somewhere would step up and help us out, as we would help them under the same circumstances.

Instead, we are a nation of isolated souls living in crowded neighborhoods. We don’t know each other. Maybe we don’t want to know each other. We lock ourselves in our homes and remain separate. My neighbor doesn’t know that she can come to me for help if she needs groceries, or some other form of aid. She doesn’t know that I will give her a ride somewhere if the need arises. She doesn’t know that if they run out of something, she can knock on my door and ask, and if I have it I will give.

This lack of connection is what will do is in, in the end.  We are cells in a body, but we are cells each struggling in our individual ways and not working together to keep the body whole.

I find it distressing.

That separateness is what works very well for politicians, who seek to continue to divide us even as we struggle with a crisis. Politics as usual, fingers pointing, blame doled out, denial, denial, denial. Fight over doing what is simply right. Each side telling the other how wrong that they are, calling things a hoax, calling things an emergency, saying this side doesn’t care and that side wants to take away from you and give to another.

Meanwhile, those of us down here at the bottom of the power pyramid are struggling. When we reach out to help others, sometimes we’re punished, sometimes marginalized, on occasion lauded, but rarely are we recognized as simply being decently human.

Even monkeys take care of the entire troupe. They take care of those at the top and those at the bottom. The least popular monkey is still not going to be eaten by a predator because regardless of their place within the troupe, they are still a member. The troupe takes care of its own.

How is it that we can’t do something that even monkeys do?

You can see from the above that I am fumbling with these thoughts, these ideas. It’s difficult for me to boil it down, to place it in a nutshell. For me personally, it is a huge idea. It is a big deal. I see my fellow humans struggling, and my instinct is to reach out and offer a hand. I may not be the strongest member of society, but I don’t think I’m the weakest either.

I have something to offer, whether it be a ride somewhere, an extra bag of rice, or reassuring word and a warm, comforting smile.

If the least of us strive to have something to offer, why can’t those considered the greatest of us do the same?

If the least of us felt confident that they would be taken care of in times of great need, I believe we would be a stronger society as a whole.

If everyone knew, absolutely knew, that they would be taken care of, that the web would catch them, that they would not fall very far before society grabbed hold and held them up, how much better off would we be?

I truly believe that we would not have empty shelves that used to hold paper goods. That we would not have empty shelves that used to hold rice, or pasta. That we would not have people in grocery stores around the nation, around the world, fighting over resources, if we weren’t afraid of running out because we knew that we would take care of each other.

Whatever happened to cause this sense of separateness, this aloneness, isolation even in cities and crowded places, it is now showing it self to be devastating. The feeling of being on our own, unable to rely on our fellows, will destroy us faster than any virus can.

I apologize if this seems to be scattered, lengthy, or completely incoherent. It is simply a thought that has been rattling around inside my head, and I felt the need to get it out.

COVID-19, for me, is more than a virus. It is an opportunity to see where I need to reach out a little more, where I need to connect a little better, where I need to reassure, to show compassion and kindness, to show love.  If nothing else, I can drive to reinforce my part of the web. It is my hope that many others will do the same, and that we will emerge on the other side of this a little stronger for it.

So...how can I help?